414 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 1 



Honey comes under the same category as 

 sugar, with this difference : It is almost 

 ready to pass into the blood without further 

 change ; and it is far more palatable than 

 sugar, since it possesses an almost priceless 

 aroma which stimulates the appetite and 

 promotes digestion. If a person has the 

 means he should, as far as possible, use 

 honey where others use sugar. 



Some say honey is not a necessity; but 

 such people are using sugar, probably to ex- 

 cess. Sweets are an absolute necessity to 

 the civilized man. No race can long exist 

 without sugar in some form, and civilized 

 men are the greatest consumers of it. 



The Secretary of Agriculture over in On- 

 tario recently stated that one pound of hon- 

 ey is equal in dietetic value to five pounds of 

 pork ; and such a statement is well within 

 the mark. Modern science abundantly con- 

 firms it. w. K. M. 



l^IQUEFYING CANDIED HONEY AT A COMPAR- 

 ATIVELY LOW TEMPERATURE IN A 

 LARGE INCUBATOR. 



As reported on p. 278 of our March 1st is- 

 sue, we have been conducting some experi- 

 ments, and expected to give the conclusion 

 of them in our last issue ; but, unfortunate- 

 ly, the incubator "went bad," the tempera- 

 ture going up so high as to melt the wax of 

 the comb, and consequently we had t) start 

 all over again. We have a very large incu- 

 bator, and in it we placed sections of comb 

 honey candied almost solid. The honey of 

 some of these within ten days was com- 

 pletely liquefied without any apparent dam- 

 age to the comb ; others, at the end of two 

 weeks, were not brought entirely to a liquid 

 state; but the top of the comb shows in some 

 cases some slight stretching, while the bot- 

 tom shows a corresponding compression or 

 sagging. The temperature has not gone 

 higher than 105° nor lower than 103. The 

 incubator in question is one of the standard 

 makes, large enough to use two lamps at a 

 time. 



We are not entirely satisfied with the re- 

 sults thus far, for we believe that, with a 

 slightly lower temperature, say 103°, ex- 

 tended over a longer period, there would be 

 no stretching of the combs; and the honey, 

 practically all clover, could be entirely re- 

 liquefied. We have demonstrated this mu<h 

 — that comb honey partly candied, that is, 

 the honey - can, at a temperature of 105°, be 

 liquefied in four or five days; in other words, 

 we can arrest the process if we see it start- 

 ing, and bring the honey back to its normal 

 state, and that, too, without injuring the 

 combs. 



Candied comb honey so treated is deli- 

 cious. The honey is thick and waxy, and as 

 clear as it was the day it was gathered by 

 the bees. The flavor is in no way impaired, 

 and the comb surface seems to be as perfect 

 as when the bees left it. ^ -<s¥i««^ 



Of course, an incubator in a commercial 

 way would be impracticable ; but we are of 

 the opinion th^t a honey-room large enough 



to hold several thousand pounds could be 

 equipped with steam or hot-water radiators 

 so that the temperature could be maintained 

 at about 104° for a period of ten days or two 

 weeks. If the progress is watched careful- 

 ly, and the temperature checked when it be- 

 gins to get too high, hundreds of dollars 

 may be saved in lost comb honey that would 

 not have brought otherwise more than the 

 rendered wax and an inferior quality of 

 honey secured through the process of ren- 

 dering. 



We will conduct our experiments further ; 

 and if they prove satisfactory we think it 

 will be possible for a dealer or large buyer 

 to make good money by buying up candied 

 comb honey and bringing it back to its nor- 

 mal state in a specially heated room. There 

 is money in this proposition — lots of it; and 

 we suggest that others having incubators — 

 and we must have thousands of subscribers 

 who are supplied with them — try this exper- 

 iment in a small way and report results. 



SHOULD THE SALE OF SPLIT SECTIONS BE 



DISCOURAGED? ARE THEY LOSING THEIR 



POPULARITY IN ENGLAND AND 



IRKLAND? 



A SHORT time ago there appeared in these 

 columns a discussion of the relative merits 

 of split sections (that is, sections split through 

 the top and both sides) and the ordinary sec- 

 tions in which the foundation is fastened in 

 any of the standard ways. We took the 

 ground that the first mentioned, owing to 

 the foundation protruding through the sides 

 and tops, would, when they fell into the 

 hands of consumers, give rise to the old 

 comb-honey canard which we have been 

 fighting for years and years For that rea- 

 son we questioned very much the wisdom of 

 pushing their sale. Mr. Hand, on the other 

 hand, took issue with us, saying that he had 

 sold thousands of such sections, but never 

 once had it been said that his comb honey 

 was manufactured. 



Along about this time. Dr. Miller, in one 

 of his Straws, stated that the popularity of 

 split sections in England was waning. We 

 remarked that, from the evidence in our of- 

 fice, it was getting to be increasingly appar- 

 ent that the demand for them in England 

 was decreasing. Referring to this the editor 

 of the Irish Bee Journal, in his issue for 

 March, has this to say: 



It is quite new to us to hear that British consumers 

 object to the split section, and we are bound to say 

 that the assertion is altogether contrary to our expe- 

 rience in marketing comb honey in England. Never- 

 theless, a statement of the kind, coming from two 

 such eminent men, seemed to us to demand investi- 

 gation; for, if it were jastitit^d by the facts, honey-pro- 

 ducers who supply the English market would need to 

 revise their method of preparing sections. Accord- 

 ingly we placed ourselves in communication with a 

 large number of the leading British and Irish produc- 

 ers, all of whom assure us that their experience 

 agrees with our own. They have never heard of any 

 objection to split sections on the part of buyers in 

 England, nor of any depreciation of the value of comb 

 honey marketed in such sections. 



We believe it to be only fair to Mr. Hand 

 and the advocates of split sections that the 



